The Transport Secretary believes the rollout of smart motorways was “entirely wrong” and dynamic hard shoulders are “insane”, while bringing forward the date for the completion of the stopped vehicle detection installation.
The Telegraph quotes Grant Shapps’s comments to the Transport Select Committee in which he said drivers still don’t know how to use smart motorways and that they have no idea what to do if they break down in a live lane as they simply “sprung up” [sic] without a major information campaign.
The Telegraph adds he confirmed the scrapping of dynamic hard shoulders, because he thinks they are “insane” and adding to motorists’ confusion.
However Shapps said smart motorways remain too expensive to scrap because the Government would need to purchase land equivalent to “700 Wembley stadiums” to create new hard shoulders, and instead he is bringing forward the target for “vehicle stop detection” technology to be fitted along all smart routes to next year rather than the initial March 2023 date.
(Picture – Highways England)
